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all of that or nothing at all

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on April 9, 2014 at 8:47pm

In college I was introduced to the utopian novel, heard much of hippie communes and investigated several religions and such, ultimately getting stuck in one. The weird thing is that for every serious group, there is a vocabulary. That group of words dictates the context of the reality of that group. Outsiders are separated by not knowing the language and/or not participating in the fellowship using that language. What I mean is you have experiences (mostly normal human experiences) and you describe them in the language of the group. The end effect is that you must use the appropriate language with the appropriate group. Mixing groups and languages is for dissing or promoting the one group to the other group.

Now if you spend any length of time in a focus, using a particular language and describe your world through the defines taught to you, you will find your being has been altered accordingly. Take my word for it, when a startling change comes, it is a struggle to deal with it internally.

The one who knows this experience is the traveller. If you've been to another nation where the culture and language is foreign then you have the alien experience. Now let's shift gears and change realities. Now you know very little experientially. You hope if you go through this door you can come back through. Then can you describe what you experience to yourself because you sure as shoot'n will have a hard time describing it to others.

I haven't been there yet, but I sense it in the back ground, where the times and names mean nothing. I wonder if my sense organs and brain are giving me all that is or a narrow spectrum. I heard one say if I rub my hands together, I am ramping up my chi. I don't want to waste energy, I do want to see energy fly from my hands, not just assume. Power of life, what a thought and yet I've been taught not to consider it or develop it. Power of mind, beyond the meanings in words I've been taught, beyond the reality I learned to sense. OR is what is exactly what it is? Perhaps it is imagination after all.

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Ibn al-Haytham...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 9, 2014 at 7:30am
Ibn al-Haytham. (Image by Guérin nicolas, GFDL)


Post inspired by COSMOS episode this past Sunday (full episode at link).


al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham


The Arabian physicist, astronomer, and mathematician al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (ca. 966-1039), or Alhazen, established the theory of vision that prevailed till the 17th century. He also defended a theory of the physical reality of Ptolemy's planetary models.



Al-Hasan was born at Basra in southern Iraq, where he must have received all his education. He gained sufficient fame for his knowledge of physics in his youth that he was called to Egypt by the Fatimid ruler al-Hakim to attempt to regulate the flow of the Nile. Failing in this effort, he was disgraced and established himself as a copyist of mathematical manuscripts; there still exists in Istanbul a manuscript of the Banu Musa's version of Apollonius's Conics copied by him in 1024. He continued to practice the scribal art in Cairo for the remainder of his life.




He did not cease to pursue his scientific studies, however, and published a large number of highly original works. He produced two catalogs of his own work, which are preserved by Ibn abi Usaybia. The first of these, compiled in 1027, comprises 25 books on mathematics and 44 on physics and metaphysics, including On the Structure of the World. The second, supplementary catalog was complied in 1028.




Al-Hasan's greatest scientific achievements were in the field of optics. In the discussion of the nature of vision at the beginning of Optics, he argues that light physically affects the eye, citing the pain experienced by looking directly at the Sun and the afterimage experienced by staring at fire and then looking into a weakly illuminated place. From this he argues that the assumption of emission of visual rays from the eye utilized by mathematical opticians, though convenient for their geometric analysis, must be physically wrong. Light rays rather proceed from the visible object to the eye and are always accompanied by color.

 

"al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 9 Apr. 2014<http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Islam Wikia: Ibn al-Haytham
Wikipedia: History of the Scientific Method/Ibin al-Haytham

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The Opposition of Mars...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 8, 2014 at 6:00pm

There are two dates of special significance:



April 8th (TODAY) is the date of opposition, when Mars, Earth, and the sun are arranged in a nearly-straight line.


If the orbits of Mars and Earth were perfectly circular, April 8th would also be the date of closest approach. However, planetary orbits are elliptical--that is, slightly egg-shaped--so the actual date of closest approach doesn't come until almost a week later.



On April 14th, Earth and Mars are at their minimum distance: 92 million km, a 6+ month flight for NASA's speediest rockets. You won't have any trouble finding Mars on this night. The full Moon will be gliding by the Red Planet in the constellation Virgo, providing a can't-miss "landmark" in the midnight sky.


Remarkably, on the same night that Mars is closest to Earth, there will be a total lunar eclipse. The full Moon of April 14-15 will turn as red as the Red Planet itself.



Try to get your taxes done, so you can enjoy the show. Working on write-offs (to join you)...



 NASA: The Opposition of Mars

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Robot Dawn...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 7, 2014 at 5:55pm
Source: The Economist (link below)

ROBOTS came into the world as a literary device whereby the writers and film-makers of the early 20th century could explore their hopes and fears about technology, as the era of the automobile, telephone and aeroplane picked up its reckless jazz-age speed. From Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” and Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot” to “WALL-E” and the “Terminator” films, and in countless iterations in between, they have succeeded admirably in their task.



Since moving from the page and screen to real life, robots have been a mild disappointment. They do some things that humans cannot do themselves, like exploring Mars, and a host of things people do not much want to do, like dealing with unexploded bombs or vacuuming floors (there are around 10m robot vacuum cleaners wandering the carpets of the world). And they are very useful in bits of manufacturing. But reliable robots—especially ones required to work beyond the safety cages of a factory floor—have proved hard to make, and robots are still pretty stupid. So although they fascinate people, they have not yet made much of a mark on the world.



That seems about to change. The exponential growth in the power of silicon chips, digital sensors and high-bandwidth communications improves robots just as it improves all sorts of other products. And, as our special report this week explains, three other factors are at play.



One is that robotics R&D is getting easier. New shared standards make good ideas easily portable from one robot platform to another. And accumulated know-how means that building such platforms is getting a lot cheaper. A robot like Rethink Robotics’s Baxter, with two arms and a remarkably easy, intuitive programming interface, would have been barely conceivable ten years ago. Now you can buy one for $25,000.



 The Economist: New roles for technology - Rise of the Robots
MIT Technology Review:
Cheaper Joints and Digits Bring the Robot Revolution Closer

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Costly Denial...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 6, 2014 at 6:16am

The difficulty of predicting local effects of climate change makes a compelling case for preventing it.



This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a major report focused on what actions might or could be taken to adapt to climate change. It attempts to describe who and what is especially vulnerable to climate change, and gives an overview of ways some are adapting.



The report makes clear that specific estimates of how climate change will affect places, people, and things are very uncertain. Brought down to a local level, climate change could go in either direction—there are risks that a given area could get drier or wetter, or suffer floods or droughts, or both. This uncertainty makes efforts to prevent climate change even more important.



Specific risks to natural systems are well documented by the report. It finds, for example, the greatest risks are to those ecosystems, people, and things in low-lying coastal areas, because expected sea-level changes are in only one direction, up. This is also the case in the Arctic, where the temperature rise is expected to be much greater than the global average. There is good science and unanimous agreement among climate models behind these assertions.



But a frustrating aspect of the report—and a reflection of the difficulty of working in this line of research—is that very few specific risks to humans are quantified in a meaningful way. For example, one might ask: has my risk of death increased because of more hot days? The report says, “Local changes in temperature and rainfall have altered the distribution of some water-borne illnesses and disease vectors (medium confidence).” This seems to state the obvious, while giving no indication of whether the alterations may have increased or decreased risk or what the magnitude of the alteration might be. Given that the statement seems to say little, it is hard to imagine there is not high confidence.



 MIT Technology Review (the report):
Why We Can't Just Adapt to Climate Change, John Reilly
MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
NOLA Times Picayune: Hurricane Katrina
FEMA: Hurricane Sandy Recovery
World Bank:
What Climate Change Means for Africa, Asia and the Coastal Poor

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So Much for Big Brother...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 3, 2014 at 2:27pm
"1984"

The security of a data connection protected using a flawed U.S. encryption standard promoted by the National Security Agency could be broken in under 16 seconds using a single computer processor. That’s according to the first in-depth study of how easily encryption systems that use the now deprecated Dual_EC random number generator could be defeated by an attacker that had “backdoored” the standard.



The flawed standard has never been widely used to protect Internet communications, even though the security company RSA got $10 million from the NSA to make it the default random number generator in one of its software packages. It is not known whether the NSA or anyone else knows the crucial mathematical relationship needed to exploit the flaw and undo encryption based on Dual_EC.



However, the study conclusively shows that an attacker that did know the key to the Dual_EC backdoor could put it to practical use. Not all of the six different encryption software packages tested could be defeated in seconds: half took a 16-processor cluster between 60 and 80 minutes of work to break. But a national intelligence agency could significantly improve on those times by devoting more computing power to the problem.



 MIT Technology Review:
Study Shows Flawed U.S. Encryption Standard Could Be Broken in Seconds

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are we there yet, the future

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on April 3, 2014 at 8:03am

I'm pickin up a conflict between the nature power people and the technology powered people to rule the planet. They duke it out by trying to reduce each other primitive savages.

The nature people (NTRs) can say a glandular hello, the Technos countered by placing a shield micro dot on their foreheads. A group of NTRs were talking when one turned without warning and winged a boomerang at a hovering ear drone, splitting it into pieces. They then went into the glandular and nodded heads toward each other.

The Techno people can't glandular connect but they do have devices for everything and a software called swarm that helps them work in masse. Techno people don't like to be solitary unless going into sensory overload, which has replaced any and all drug use. So when you see a lone person you have to figure is he naturating or chaosing.

Once a Techno challenged a NTR to a contest to see who could relay the farthest. The Techno first bounces signals off the ionosphere. He then sent signals to the furthest satellite in space. The NTR then transcribed a lengthy message from a friend on the other side of the galaxy w/pictures and a joked about a strange signal he intercepted from a busted up satellite.

The NTRs like to live simple, they are natural of course, grow food themselves, mostly for the pleasure of it. Their needs are small, they live with seasonal local foods. The Technos still use the mega farm approach to sustain their selves and are working toward synth-food with infinity shelf life.

The Technos brag how their big machines will one day build new pyramids once they can break the dense matter gravity link. The NTRs say what is matter or gravity to us? (Ooh Neal, there is no spoon!).

Sound familiar? I wonder who we be ultimate. I do think we trust too much in technology today and don't know enough about nature (MTR NTR). The key is not information and calculation but the illumination of knowledge.

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Ozge...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 1, 2014 at 5:20am
Ozgenur “Ozge” Kahvecioglu Feridun first came to Argonne in 2010, when she was as a Visiting Scientist working on a scale-up project, the Ultrafast and Large Scale Boriding project.

A visiting scientist at Argonne in 2010 and a postdoctoral research fellow since 2012, Ozgenur “Ozge” Kahvecioglu Feridun is a metallurgical and materials engineer with the Process Technology Research group in the Energy Systems division.



What do you do at Argonne?



I work on process development and scale-up of advanced cathode materials. We scale processes from bench to pilot scale, identifying and resolving process challenges when producing materials. This reduces the risks associated with the commercialization of new materials.



What made you choose Argonne as the place to continue your postdoc work?



Actually, this is my second time working at Argonne. In 2010, I was here as a Visiting Scientist working on another scale-up project, the Ultrafast and Large Scale Boriding project, under Ali Erdemir. During this project, I learned firsthand how to apply my skills to solve process scale-up problems and how working on a diverse team contributed to the overall success of the project. Everyone brought a different expertise to the table that helped us solve many difficult issues.



On that project, we scaled an advanced heat-treating process from bench to industrial scale. It was subsequently licensed to an industrial partner and won an R&D 100 award in 2012.



 Argonne National Labs: Ozgenur Kahvecioglu Feridun, by John Spizzurri

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WIMP Signals...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 2, 2014 at 5:57am
Maps of gamma rays from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, before (left) and after signals from known sources were removed, reveal an excess that is consistent with the distribution of dark matter.

Not long after the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope took to the sky in 2008, astrophysicists noticed that it was picking up a steady rain of gamma rays pouring outward from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This high-energy radiation was consistent with the detritus of annihilating dark matter, the unidentified particles that constitute 84 percent of the matter in the universe and that fizzle upon contact with each other, spewing other particles as they go. If the gamma rays did in fact come from dark matter, they would reveal its identity, resolving one of the biggest mysteries in physics. But some argued that the gamma rays could have originated from another source.



Now a new analysis of the signal claims to rule out all other plausible explanations and makes the case that the gamma rays trace back to a type of particle that has long been considered the leading dark matter candidate — a weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMP. Meanwhile, a more tentative X-ray signal reported in two other new studies suggests the existence of yet another kind of dark matter particle called a sterile neutrino.



In the new gamma-ray analysis, which appeared Feb. 27 on the scientific preprint site arXiv.org, Dan Hooper and his collaborators used more than five years’ worth of the cleanest Fermi data to generate a high-resolution map of the gamma-ray excess extending from the center of the galaxy outward at least 10 angular degrees, or 5,000 light-years, in all directions.



“The results are extremely interesting,” said Kevork Abazajian, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. “The most remarkable part of the analysis is that the signal follows the shape of the dark matter profile out to 10 degrees,” he said, explaining that it would be “very difficult to impossible” for other sources to mimic this predicted dark matter distribution over such a broad range.



The findings do not constitute a discovery of dark matter, the scientists said, but they prepare the way for an upcoming test described by many researchers as a “smoking gun”: If the gamma-ray excess comes from annihilating WIMPs, and not conventional astrophysical objects, then the signal will also be seen emanating from dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way — diffuse objects that are rich in dark matter but not in other high-energy photon sources such as pulsars, rotating neutron stars that have been floated as alternative explanations for the excess.



 Quanta Magazine: Case for Dark Matter Signal Strengthens

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WSS Character

Posted by Brandon Hill on April 2, 2014 at 12:43am

So, our layout editor wanted me to do something different with Neela, a secondary character for "Wild Space Saga."   But I thought she looked just fine as-is.  So I'll be posting all 3 of the best iterations for you all.  But I need your help.  Which color scheme do you think is the best?  Let me know down below! 

First up is the original as I had it.  

Next is the more earthy combo that my editor came up with.

And here's the third: 

So let me know which one you think is best!  Thanks for your input, folks!  And be sure to keep up with our webcomic at http://www.tapastic.com/series/wildspacesaga . 

-Brandon Hill

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Back of the Envelop...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 31, 2014 at 6:00am
Source: Link below

After following the BICEP2 announcement via Twitter, I had to board a transcontinental flight, so I had 5 uninterrupted hours to think about what it all meant. Without Internet access or references, and having not thought seriously about inflation for decades, I wanted to reconstruct a few scraps of knowledge needed to interpret the implications of r ~ 0.2.



I did what any physicist would have done … I derived the basic equations without worrying about niceties such as factors of 3 or 2π. None of what I derived was at all original — the theory has been known for 30 years — but I’ve decided to turn my in-flight notes into a blog post. Experts may cringe at the crude approximations and overlooked conceptual nuances, not to mention the missing references. But some mathematically literate readers who are curious about the implications of the BICEP2 findings may find these notes helpful. I should emphasize that I am not an expert on this stuff (anymore), and if there are serious errors I hope better informed readers will point them out.



By tradition, careless estimates like these are called “back-of-the-envelope” calculations. There have been times when I have made notes on the back of an envelope, or a napkin or place mat. But in this case I had the presence of mind to bring a notepad with me.


 Quantum Frontiers: Inflation on the back of an envelop
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FREE - AMULLETTE AFLAME ON KINDLE!!!

Posted by Rasheedah Prioleau on March 30, 2014 at 4:00am

Hey BSFS!!!! 

I just got Amullette Aflame back from the editor and wanted to give you all a chance to get it Free before the virtual launch May 1st.  

FREE Sunday March 30th - Tuesday April 1

http://www.amazon.com/Amullette-Aflame-Princess-Rasheedah-Prioleau-ebook/dp/B00D2XFHJG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1396096635&sr=8-3&keywords=rasheedah+prioleau

 After three years in prison without trial, Amullette is given the opportunity for parole if she agrees to raise a stolen child named Mikaya as her own.  Another condition of parole is marriage to a high ranking soldier of the Universal.   As fate would have it, her selected spouse is her ex-fiancé, Admiral Semaj Kroan.

Adjusting to her new life is easier than she expected as she falls in love with Admiral Kroan and adores the little girl the Universal has asked her to raise.  However, as Amullette and Kroan begin to build a beautiful life together they must face making the ultimate sacrifice to get Mikaya back where she truly belongs.  

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Wild Space Saga

Posted by Brandon Hill on March 29, 2014 at 2:51pm

Hey there, BSFS!  

You know, it has come to my attention that I NEVER posted any updates to my comic here!

::le gasp!:: 

My friend and co-writer, Terence Pegasus and I have created a new Wild-West-in-space themed webcomic called WILD SPACE SAGA, a three-arc epic series in the far-flung future.  

The plot goes a little something like this: 

***

The Future.

Far From Earth.

Mankind has spread to the stars; Earth has been lost. Civilization has fallen and arisen.
Since the devastation of the Imperium Wars, the danger of internal conflict among the Alliance of free worlds has become a constant threat, while the Second Imperium, a cruel mockery of the fallen old civilization, licks its chops for more worlds to increase its growing war machine.
Faced with the superior technology of the Imperium, the Alliance knows that the only defense against the Imperial war machine is unity.

But that hope is bleak.
And an ancient evil is coming.

***

Sound epic?  It is! You like Gunslinging?  We got it!  Sexy catgirls (and boys)? Got that too!  Epic space battles and giant freaking robots?  We've got you hooked up! High stakes plot with the future of life as we know it on the line?  Oh, yeah!  

So the only question left is, is your body ready for awesome?

Of course it is!  

I should have been sharing this with you all for awhile now, but it completely slipped my mind for some reason (Don't judge me.  :-P  ).  But that means you're all in luck, as we have a good backlog of pages since this past August, when it began.  Our first story arc, "The Last Warship" is well underway, So come on down and check us out!  New Updates each week!  And we have big things in store!  

Wild Space Saga

Also, to double your pleasure, we have new concept art and updates posted on our official DeviantArt page.  I'll be sure to post some of our new works here as well, so follow my posts here on BSFS. But if you want to keep up with us a bit more closely, and especially if you have a DA account, devwatch us here:  

Wild Space Saga - Deviantart

If we've piqued your interest, thank you very much!  We hope you love the work we've done.  And all we ask is that you share the love if you love it!  We want our viewership to grow like the itchy spot on your foot that you told no one about.  So come on down for adventure, and stay for the free baklava.  And as we like to say, we hope you'll come along with us to follow the Northwest Passage!  

See you soon, space cowboys!  

-Brandon Hill

P.S. Here's another freebie for you to share the love with!  Also, let me know what you think of the comic!  Feedback is ALWAYS welcome! 

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Cause It's Cap...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 28, 2014 at 6:00am

...and, it's Friday! One more week to geek on "Winter Soldier." I'd buy on Fandango: after the east coast nuclear winter, people will be stir crazy from telecommuting and need to get out...and see real people again.

 The analysis below is the reason why you shouldn't take a physics person to the movies with you...just kidding, and my wife sadly has no choice in the matter. We'll behave, promise. Just don't ask questions like these.





At the end, Cap throws his shield at the Winter Soldier – because that’s what Captain America does. But wait! The Winter Soldier just catches the shield and throws it right back at Captain America. The real cool part is what happens when Cap catches the shield. The impact is strong enough to push him back a little bit. Is this enough to get an estimate for the mass of the shield? I think so.



Sliding Back

This is really a multi-part problem. First, the shield is thrown by the Winter Soldier. I don’t really care about the throwing motion. Next, the shield moves through the air to Captain America and collides with him. This gives him some recoil velocity. However, Cap is standing on the ground such that his recoiling body is slowed down to a stop by friction.



It might not seem to be the best place to start, but I am going to start backwards. Let’s look at Captain America sliding after the impact with the shield. By estimating the frictional force and the sliding distance, I can get a value for the recoil speed after the impact.



In this first problem, I can just consider Captain America as a block with some initial speed moving across the ground. Here is a force diagram while he is slowing down (after the impact).


The forces in the vertical direction must add up to zero since Cap doesn’t accelerate up or down. This means that I can find the force the ground pushes up on him:


Why do I need this force pushing up (usually called the Normal force)? If I use the typical model for sliding friction, the magnitude of the frictional force can be determined by:


 Wired: How Much Does Captain America’s Shield Weigh? Rhett Allain

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